


it doesn’t have to be a (snow)man

by sunset_swerved



Series: sonsetcurve’s 12 days of jatpmas [6]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Don't Try This At Home, because it’s california, do you wanna build a snowman, not actual snow, seriously don’t
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunset_swerved/pseuds/sunset_swerved
Summary: “Carlos!” Reggie shouted, once his requested 30 minutes were up. “Come to the kitchen!”Nervous, Carlos walked down the hall and slipped, a little, and caught himself on the wall as a puddle on the floor that had leaked from the kitchen started to form. He walked through the doorway and his jaw dropped.Almost floor to ceiling were small, white bubbles. There was so much foam that it made stiff peaks and slowly started to cover everything even as the dishwasher (which was the culprit) kept churning out more. Beside the overflowing, soapy dishwasher stood Reggie.Who was beaming, with a soap sud beard.
Series: sonsetcurve’s 12 days of jatpmas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2056728
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	it doesn’t have to be a (snow)man

**Author's Note:**

> Aww yay! We made it to Day 6 of sonsetcurve’s jatp holiday challenge! Today’s prompt was, literally, “do you wanna build a snowman” and, they live in California so I had to get *creative*. Enjoy!

Carlos had never seen snow.

Okay, that wasn’t the  _ complete _ truth. He HAD seen snow, but only on the tv and in pictures his cousins who lived in Pennsylvania sent. But he had never seen  _ real _ snow, the kind that whited out the world that you could make snowmen out of and forts and have snowball fights and do all the stuff he had seen in movies.

He loved living in sunny California, most of the time, but he  _ also _ really wanted a white Christmas. Just once.

“Oh, boy, it smells like up dog in here.”

Carlos sighed, but shook his head unable to keep his grin off of his face. “Reggie, no one has used that in at  _ least _ ten years.”

“Nothing much, how about- oh,” the ghost replied, stopping himself. Carlos let out a laugh.

He had grown used to the dead teenagers that lived in his garage and played in a band with his (alive) sister months ago. It helped that they all treated him like a little brother, but not in a mean or condescending way like Jake Matthew’s older brother did to him.

Alex helped him with his math homework and introduced him to his  _ super cool _ skateboarding boyfriend and Luke was teaching him guitar and (eugh) dating his sister, but Reggie? Reggie was his favorite.

He didn’t know  _ why _ exactly Reggie was his favorite, but ever since he had told him that  _ he _ was the one who scared  _ Tia _ , Carlos knew that he was the absolute  _ coolest _ .

“How’s it going, little man?” Reggie asked, once he recovered from his joke not landing. He slid onto the couch next to Carlos and the younger boy felt it dip with his weight.

A physical day then.

“Do you wanna build a snowman?” He asked.

Reggie looked at him blankly and Carlos, who, despite having ‘lived’ with the ghosts since April, hadn’t gotten used to their super deep thinking yet, almost opened his mouth to say forget it, but Reggie jumped into action.

No literally, jumped.

“Dude, I would  _ love _ to build a snowman!” He said, excitedly. “I have, had? family that lived in Iowa and we would go there for Christmas every couple of years whenever my parents would stop fighting long enough and my little brother and sister and I would build like, whole  _ armies _ of snowmen and it was so  _ cool _ .”

“But there’s no snow,” Carlos said, even as he tried to imagine a younger Reggie (maybe his age) with two other little kids who looked exactly like him (little leather jackets and all) rolling up snowmen like he had seen in the Hallmark kissing movies his  _ Tia _ liked. “You can’t build a snowman with no snow.”

“Oh,” Reggie said, smirking in a way that meant something was about to be  _ fun _ but also  _ probably _ get them in trouble. “Just you wait. Give me like thirty minutes.”

Carlos felt his stomach start to flutter, whether in nervousness or anticipation or both, as Reggie proofed away and he found that he could  _ not _ sit still. What was he doing? How was he going to make it snow? It was in the seventies a couple of days ago and there was  _ probably _ a wildfire nearby, there was  _ no _ way-

“Carlos!” Reggie shouted, once his requested 30 minutes were up. “Come to the kitchen!”

Nervous, Carlos walked down the hall and slipped, a little, and caught himself on the wall as a puddle on the floor that had leaked from the kitchen started to form. He walked through the doorway and his jaw  _ dropped _ .

Almost floor to ceiling were small, white  _ bubbles _ . There was so much foam that it made stiff peaks and slowly started to cover everything even as the dishwasher (which was the culprit) kept churning out more. Beside the overflowing, soapy dishwasher stood Reggie.

Who was beaming, with a soap sud beard.

“Do I look like Santa?” Reggie asked.

Carlos just stared, shocked, at the absolutely  _ crazy _ amount of bubbles that had taken over their kitchen instead of answering.

“I know it’s not  _ exactly _ snow,” Reggie said, as he turned the dial down on the machine. “But! You can do so much with the foam! Like-“

“Making a snowman?” Carlos, hesitantly, suggested.

“Like making a snowman,” Reggie confirmed.

He knew they’d get in so much trouble for flooding the kitchen and causing so much damage but, for once, Carlos didn’t care. Reggie had really gone above and beyond. He would take a  _ thousand _ lectures from  _ Tia _ and no video games for a  _ month _ if it meant that this could happen.

Without further ado, Carlos let out a loud “Whoop whoop!” And  _ dived _ headfirst into the bubbles. He heard Reggie laughing as he nearly swam through the mess, the older boy jumping in with him.

Between the two of them, they managed to make something that looked like a snowman out of the foam, which was literally all that Carlos wanted to do. They even tried to put Alex’s snapback on it and one of his dad’s scarves, but the foam wasn’t actually strong enough to hold it which meant they had to make  _ more _ snowmen.

It was, Carlos wouldn’t lie, probably the best day of his life.

Eventually, the two boys devolved into throwing foam at each other. The two of them were slipping and sliding all over the kitchen as the dishwasher somehow  _ still _ kept pumping out bubbles; Reggie still with a fake beard made of them and Carlos covered nearly head to toe.

“Carlos!” Someone called, the sound of the door shutting only barely being heard over their laughter. “Where are you?  _ Papi  _ wants to go to  _ Tia’s  _ for dinner!”

Carlos looked at Reggie with wide eyes. Julie was smart, she’d catch on real quick. Reggie looked just as scared, but he nodded at the younger boy and motioned for him to hide behind the island which, thankfully, because of the bubbles and foam he would be completely hidden.

“Carlos!” Julie yelled. “Come on! Dad’s waiting in the car.” A pause, and Carlos just  _ knew _ she found the puddle just outside the kitchen that had probably grown in the time they’d been playing. “Carlos? What’s-“

“Julie!” Reggie yelled. “Oh god I’m so sorry I was just trying to help do the dishes for Ray because he’s been so nice to us and let us stay here and treated us like family and my family didn’t grow up with a dishwasher so I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to put  _ dish soap _ in it, which, really that’s not a smart thing, but anyway it started leaking and filling up the kitchen and Carlos tried to help me stop it but he got covered in bubbles and it was starting to get dangerous so I told him that I would handle it but, turns out, I cannot handle it I-“

“Oh no, Reggie!” He heard Julie say, thankfully no anger in her voice (and Carlos knew that it was literally because it was  _ Reggie _ that took the fall for it, because he knew that if  _ he _ had done it he would be getting yelled at) instead, she was panicked. “There’s an emergency stop button on the top, the orange one! Hit it, quick!”

Reggie, apparently, did because the sound of the dishwasher slowly stopped, leaving the two of them (and Carlos, but his sister didn’t know he was there) in silence.

“I’m really sorry, Julie,” Reggie said. “I didn’t mean-“

“No I know,” his sister said, with a sigh. “It’s fine. We’ll clean it up and everything should be okay. It was an accident, right?”

“Definitely,” Reggie replied, quickly. “An accident. Man, who decided that dish soap didn’t belong in dishwashers?”

Julie let out a laugh and Carlos knew they were in the clear. “Let me go tell dad something happened and we won’t be going to  _ Tia’s _ after all. Carlos!”

At his sister’s yell, Carlos waited a few seconds before poking sliding, trying to look like he was sliding into the kitchen.

“Julie!” He said. “Do you see-“

“Yeah, buddy,” she replied with a grin. “I definitely see. I’m gonna go tell dad, do you want to go get a couple of buckets from the closet?”

“I’ll go with you,” Reggie said, poofing over to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Carlos tried not to notice the way she sunk into him (wasn’t she dating Luke?) “So I can start my apologies early.”

His sister laughed and the two started to make their way outside, leaving Carlos, covered in suds, standing in the kitchen almost happier than he had ever felt.

Reggie turned around and winked at him before the two disappeared out the door.

And Carlos went to go get the buckets. And some towels. And probably a mop.


End file.
